The Wonderful Thing About Axel
by becoafamu
Summary: Non-AU. Organization 13 silliness. Two-shot, no pairings. Axel gets in touch with his inner child when he's sent on a mission to read a seemingly harmless picture book. Yeah, that picture book. Kingdom Hearts / Winnie the Pooh.
1. Chapter 1

SELF-INDULGENT AUTHOR NOTES: So, I was playing Kingdom Hearts, and Tigger bounced up to me and did his T-I-double-GUH-ER thing, and I thought, man, wouldn't it be awesome if he met Axel and they both introduced themselves by spelling their names? Then this happened. It's my very first Axel-centric fic. It was originally written as a one-shot, but it's so long I decided it worked better split into two chapters. Enjoy! :)

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**The Wonderful Thing About Axel: Part 1**

'Twas not very often that the World That Never Was _was_ much of anything. The place had, of course, come by its memorable moniker for a reason. The inhabitants too rarely begged to be described, more or less content (for they could not feel contentment) to languish away doing nothing at all, except maybe going out on a mission or three more out of a need to _do _something than any drive to find their missing hearts. As such, the World That Never Was could ordinarily only be described as a rather bleak and boring place.

That day, however, was different. On that day, the World That Never Was was in complete disarray. It was hectic, crazy, wild, and panicky, to the extent that if one were in the habit of observing the World That Never Was and the Nobodies therein, one might well believe that the World was ending entirely. The issue at the heart of the chaos was rather simple, really, but being as dull as it was, even simple issues were enough to throw the World That Never Was completely off-kilter.

That bleak and boring day, Axel was singing.

Luxord was the first to discover the problem and sound the alarm. The singing had been going on long enough by then, however, that the raucous and unpleasant noise had already banged and clanged its way into the ears of every member of the Organization. Thus, it was a confused pack of Nobodies that struggled their way to the meeting room, some even too disoriented to teleport, stumbling down the halls of the castle like the hounds of heck were at their heels.

"Is everyone here?" Xemnas tried desperately to get order in his ranks, while Saïx performed a quick headcount. Everyone was present and accounted for, except of course Axel, who never came to these meetings anyway and was not particularly welcome at this one. After a few minutes the group had quieted down, but they still remained bunched together in the safety of the floor rather than teleporting up to their usual seats. Demyx was the first to speak.

"What's going on? Why won't anybody tell me what's going on?"

"Number 8 discovered his inner songbird," said Lexaeus drily. No one laughed, not that they would have even if what he'd said was funny.

"Well, how do we _stop _him?" Vexen snapped, a flurry of agitation. "This is terrible!"

"I believe it was _you _who gave him that mission in the first place, was it not, Superior?" Marluxia sneered. His aspirations were well-known by this point and everyone decided to ignore him, except Larxene, who elbowed him in the ribs.

"Number 13," Xemnas stated evenly. "You spend more time with Number 8 than anyone else. What do you think?" Roxas glanced up from where he had been carving shapes into the side of his seat with his Keyblades. Then he went back to carving shapes into the side of his seat with his Keyblades. The youngest Nobody was not, as they say, all there.

"We'll find a way to stop him. But first we need to know what _happened,_" said Zexion. And with that, all eyes present slowly turned to Xaldin.

* * *

"Number 8, you have a mission today." Axel's day was going perfectly fine until he heard those words.

"It's my day off," he said flatly. Members of the Organization didn't get official time off, of course, but somehow he'd slipped through the cracks that day and hadn't received a mission. His brilliant plan to avoid everyone until the day was over had been going quite swimmingly, until Xaldin teleported directly into his room. Figures that the one day he'd be trying to avoid everyone would be the one day they'd all come actively looking for him. In any case, he loved his days off because that meant he actually got to _choose _what would not be interesting him that day.

"Relax, kid. All you have to do is read a book." Axel thought he was joking until sure enough, Xaldin pulled a book out of his robe. "This belonged to the Keybearer. The Superior wants you to see if there's anything useful inside it."

"Reading?" he asked incredulously. "Isn't that Zexion's thing?"

"Number 6 is busy today." It wasn't that Axel minded reading, not exactly, it's just that he preferred books with lots of pictures. This particular book was rather old and musty and looked like it had no pictures at all, or if it _did _have pictures, they were probably all of creepy pagan symbols and antique torture equipment.

Actually, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Fine." Axel grabbed the book from Xaldin's hand and carried it over to his bed, all while Xaldin disappeared without even saying goodbye. Whatever.

The book was quite large, with a blank cover and torn binding. The smell coming off of the old paper was difficult to place, but reminded Axel somewhat of mold- had it been kept under a sink in its old home or something? A large clasp on the left side appeared to keep the book locked tight, but when Axel went to melt it off, he found that it was already broken. Access to the inside of the book was officially unhindered.

"Phase 1 operations, complete," Axel muttered to himself, and he opened up his mission, pretending not to notice when a corner of the cover bent and crumbled off. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that the top of the first page did indeed have a picture. A little bear in a t-shirt was sitting under a tree. Now that he was thinking about it, it had been kind of silly to think that the Keybearer would own a book that had pictures of pagan symbols and torture equipment- from what he'd heard, the kid was kind of an idiot.

"Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood," Axel began reading, out loud so as not to miss anything. If the size of the print was any indication, this job wouldn't take very long at all. "There lived a bear named Winnie the Pooh, along with his friends." His suspicions regarding the idiocy of the Keybearer were rapidly being confirmed.

Axel kept reading, more and more quietly until finally he stopped reading out loud altogether. The book was indescribably dull. Winnie the Pooh liked to eat something called 'Hunny,' was not very bright, and was frequently getting into odd situations that only his bumbly folk brand of common sense could get him out of. At least his report wouldn't take very long to fill out. _Read book. Keybearer has juvenile taste in literature. End report._

Within two pages, Axel stopped reading the words and decided to focus completely on the pictures. The bear was rather cute, really, not that he'd ever tell anyone he thought so. The forest looked like a nice place, too- very green and inviting, unlike the bland gray fogginess of the World That Never Was. The little Pooh bear seemed to be enjoying himself on a swing attached to a tree. The entire setting was just so peaceful, the way Axel's life had had the potential to be, back when he'd still had one. And that was what being a Nobody was all about, right? The loss of life, the loss of heart, the loss of _potential_?

Axel leaned his cheek against the faded page, overwhelmed by the shadow of a feeling not unlike nostalgia. He hadn't been human in such a long time. He had no business reading somebody's picture book.

Around then, that was when Axel began to fall. He didn't identify it as falling at first- he just thought all of the sort-of emotions were giving him nausea. Then he began falling faster. By the time he realized what was going on, it was too late to do much of anything to prevent it. Somehow, even though he was falling, he didn't have anything to grab onto to stop himself. He wasn't scared, or shocked, or anything at all- he couldn't feel any of those emotions, so he was left waiting, in a sort of detached way, to find out where exactly he was going to land.

The entire ordeal only got stranger when Axel landed on his feet, like a cat. He was not, in fact, disheveled in any way, despite having gone hurtling through space. A quick look around finally answered his question.

He hadn't been falling, he'd been _shrinking._

Axel was, at present, standing across the binding of the book he'd been reading, reduced to approximately the same size as the characters in the pictures. Next to him was a tiny door, inviting him to open it, to take those last few steps and truly enter what he assumed to be the Hundred Acre Wood. Was it possible that there could be an entire _world _inside this book?

Since it was his job to find out, and since he was unable to genuinely feel fear or apprehension anyway, Axel boldly went where no Nobody had gone before. He opened the door, and was promptly enveloped by a blinding flash of light. When he regained his vision, he found himself in a place rather unlike what he'd been expecting.

He was in a forest, all right- definitely a forest, but there was no little bear named Pooh, and no trees with swings. The place was almost menacing, with big hulking trees stretching into pathways and blocking out light. Though Axel was grateful, sort of, in his own way, that at least this world _had_ a sun, unlike the World That Never Was.

The second surprise came in the form of changes to himself. Axel was familiar with worlds where your body changed- he'd had a whole party's worth of fun the day he'd gone to the Pridelands and turned into a cheetah. Unfortunately, this particular world's affects weren't nearly as pleasant.

He'd been turned into a _pre-teen._

His hands and feet were clumsily out of proportion with the rest of him, hinting at his future- or was it past?- growth into a 6'3" behemoth. Now shrunken and scrawny, his clothes had shrunk to match with only limited success, causing his coat to flop around as it hung loosely off his tiny body. And as if all of that weren't bad enough, he could already feel a pimple straining to erupt from his forehead.

Horrified, Axel immediately turned to flee back to the comforting nothingness of the World That Never Was, only to discover that the door he'd come through had already disappeared.

Yeah, this sucked.

Axel stuck his hand out and summoned a portal. Then he tried again. Each time, the dark energy sputtered, fizzled, and died, evidently blocked by whatever magic was sustaining a world inside of a _book _to begin with. The pathways of darkness couldn't reach this place. Did that mean, if he were truly stuck, that the rest of the Organization wouldn't be able to find him?

After another ten minutes or so of futile attempts, Axel finally resigned himself to finding an exit the conventional way. Since he couldn't go back, he had to go forward, so he set off through the forest, or at least, he tried to. His feet were now almost goofily large, after all, and being used to being taller and in proportion, and, well…

Axel took a single step and fell flat on his face.

Grassy and miserable, he stood back up, determined to try again. One step later, he was still upright. He took a second step, lifting his feet almost comically high so he wouldn't trip over his boots. A third step, and he was golden.

Now that he was finally mobile, Axel went tip-toeing through the forest, frying himself up a nice path as he went. Eventually, almost as if the trees were taking the hint, more paths began to open up and more light broke through. He was approaching what was apparently a clearing in the middle of the dense forest. Maybe there, where the trees had some space around them, he'd be able to climb up and see if he could find an exit.

He'd been developing theories as he went, of course. Since he hadn't meant a single sentient anything thus far, his favorite theory was that this book was a trap, designed to lure in children, or whoever else happened to get in the way. Yes, maybe this whole world was like the inside of a Venus fly trap, and he was slowly being digested by some sort of child-eating monster. Or maybe the book's job was just to contain him until the _true _villain came to extract him from the book. Maybe that was what the Keybearer did- deceived his foes with a seemingly innocent book about a cute little bear, and then, once they'd peeked inside, he struck. Maybe the World That Never Was had already been conquered by the forces of Light and Good. If that were the case, Axel was rather glad he'd missed it.

Axel was so deep in thought that he didn't hear the rustling noise above him, as something or some_one _followed him through the treetops. Instead, he just wandered out into the clearing of tree stumps, shuffling along and staring at his feet the way pre-teens do. He was completely unprepared for the bright orange Bomb of Death that struck him down from above.

"Goo!" he screeched, in a voice much higher-pitched than his usual, as he stumbled forward and head-over-heels from the force of the attack. Once he'd hit the ground with a pathetic meat sack thwump, he was able to take a moment to think about what he'd said, and how different it was from what he'd _wanted _to say.

"Oh my stars," he tried again. "Holy cow." Apparently, not only had his body been made children's book compliant, but his vocabulary, as well.

"Fiddlesticks," he muttered darkly.

"Who are you?" The voice came seemingly out of nowhere. At that point Axel remembered that he'd been struck down from above by a bright orange Bomb of Death, and he immediately surged into violent revenge mode. In one fell swoop and with a mighty snarl, he summoned his chakram and whirled around, entirely prepared to bust out a flurry of dancing _pain_ on his would-be attacker.

Unfortunately, he had not taken into consideration the possibility that his attacker was an adorable little stuffed kitty cat. The same adorable stuffed kitty cat, in fact, who had just inquired as to who he was.

"Who are _you_?" Axel snapped, still irritated even though he'd decided not to flay anything, seeing as how the cat's big beady eyes were cute enough to stir even _his _heart, and he didn't even have one. His weapons vanished before he even had a chance to be grateful that they'd appeared in the first place.

"The name's Tigger!" the animal chirped gruffly, a combination which Axel had beforehand not thought possible, but then, he'd never talked to a stuffed animal before, either. "T-I-double-GUH-ER. Tigger! This is my bouncin' spot!"

"I'm Axel. A- …xel." Suddenly, he stopped. This tiger- for with a name like Tigger, he was probably a tiger- this little stuffed tiger _stole his naming gimmick. _Wait, no. This book was old. _Beyond _old. The little stuffed tiger had probably done it first. Axel paled. As soon as he got out, he would have to burn this book straight to ash. All evidence that his trademark snark was shared by an adorable stuffed tiger named Tigger who had something called a "bouncin' spot" would have to be destroyed. Immediately.

"Hi, Ay-xel," Tigger said cheerfully, and with a solid bounce onto his tail, hopped up onto a nearby tree stump. Axel had to admit, the clearing with all of its stumps did look like a very nice to place to have fun bouncing and other such things.

Oh. Oh, no. The world was getting to him.

Axel wanted to continue moving, but all directions branching out from the clearing, save the swath he'd just burned out of existence, looked exactly the same. He had no idea where to go, or what to do. Begrudgingly, he began to admit to himself that he had to ask Tigger for help. He'd be toasting this place as soon as he got out anyway, so no one would ever have to know. But what would he ask? "How do you get out of this place" might be too weird,- these creatures probably wouldn't know about the other worlds, after all. The Keybearer had almost certainly been here, though, and he obviously made it back out again.

"Hey. Do you know someone named Sora?" At that question, Tigger promptly bounced himself right back to Axel, finishing with a double flip to land gracefully on his oversized plushy feet. He really was quite good at bouncing, for all that he talked about it.

"'Course I know Sora! He's a champion bouncer!" The tiny tiger bounced himself onto his tail and back onto his feet. The energy was not contagious.

"I need to talk to him. Is he still here?" Axel asked carefully. He knew that Sora wasn't in this world because he was at the edge of all worlds, battling the Superior's Heartless. Which meant he must have come here, met Tigger, and left again. Which meant there was a way out that didn't involved using portals. Yes, Axel's deductive reasoning skills were a force to be reckoned with.

"Nope. Everyone else is gone, too," Tigger said.

"Everyone else?"

"Pooh, and Piglet, and Kanga and Roo. And Rabbit, and Owl, and Eeyore." As he rattled off names, he bounced around Axel's feet. "We were all looking for Eeyore's tail, and now everyone's gone off," Tigger finished, bouncing from foot to foot. Axel promptly forgot all of the names.

"Uh, what were you looking for? What's a yortle?" Axel asked stupidly. Pre-teens are not especially known for their attention spans. Thankfully, Tigger didn't seem to mind that Axel hadn't been listening to him, because he immediately bounced into demanding free favors. Wait, what?

"Help me find 'em!" the little tiger commanded. Axel just stared.

"Are you serious?" he finally asked. Blunt to be sure, but though Axel had many strong points, tact was not one of them.

"Maybe we'll find Sora, too!" Tigger rattled out, sounding like a chipper Boy Scout who also happened to be a chain smoker. The logic left much to be desired- how would looking for other people help him find Sora? At that point, Axel remembered that he wasn't actually looking for Sora, he just wanted an exit. And if Tigger knew where he was going in this world, which seemed likely, he would lead Axel to somewhere where he could find a way out. Hopefully.

"Ok, let's go," Axel finally relented. Tigger whooped with joy, a sort of hoo-hoo sound that added creepy old man to the mix of chain-smoking Boy Scout, and immediately bounced up to grab Axel's hand. Apparently they could not walk together without holding hands.

With a weary sigh, Axel took the tiny paw in his sweaty pre-teenage palm, and allowed the stuffed tiger to lead him back out into the forest.

* * *

Ha! Poor Axel. If you want more Org 13 silliness, this could probably be considered a companion to my one-shot "Demyx's Bad Day," wherein Demyx goes to Disney Castle and has a bad day.

Review plz? :) Next chap soon!


	2. Chapter 2

I did promise that the next chapter would be up soon, didn't I? :) It was mostly done, I just split it into two parts because it seemed appropriate, and I mean, who wants to read a 6,000+ word one-shot about Axel meeting Tigger? LOL.

Many thanks to Saxhyel, manyissues101, Pantharya, KattJealous, Kabbage Kat, Blazy, and LiteraryMirage for reviews!

* * *

Axel and Tigger walked, or in Tigger's case bounced, for what seemed like hours, though it really couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. Everything in the forest looked exactly the same, down to the last tiny leaf, and Axel couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was going in circles. On top of that, Tigger had long since stopped giving him directions in favor of babbling about nothing in particular, and now singing at the top of his stuffed little lungs.

"OHHH THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT TIGGERS!" he began. "IS TIGGERS ARE WONDERFUL THINGS!" Axel's left eye had gotten so twitchy since his arrival that the apparently contagious twitch had already spread to his right, resulting in a spastic and unnatural jerking of his face from left to right in a most erratic fashion.

"THEIR TOPS ARE MADE OUTTA RUBBER! THEIR BOTTOMS ARE MADE OUTTA SPRINGS!" His teeth were grinding, too.

"THEY'RE BOUNCY, WOUNCY, FLOUNCY, POUNCY, FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN!" No. No they most definitely were not.

"BUT THE VERY MOST WONDERFUL THING ABOUT TIGGERS IS-"

"Do you really have to do that?" Axel finally snapped. All the twitching was going to give him crows' feet, and he couldn't even _age._

"What's wrong with singin'?" Tigger asked innocently. His beady little stuffed tiger eyes and adorable springy tail were threatening to take down even hardened Axel's many defenses. Not only had he somehow circumvented the fact that Axel couldn't feel real emotions and managed to annoy him, but he was also steadily busting through the layers upon layers of psychotic neurosis that Axel had developed to compensate for not being able to feel emotions in the first place. The little guy was good.

"Uh, nothing's _wrong_ with singing, objectively speaking. I just prefer quiet." For some reason, Axel thought he needed to preserve little Tigger's feelings. The Hundred Acre Wood being what it was, there probably wasn't much around to hurt anyone's feelings, and who knew how his new guide would react?

"Ok," Tigger said at last, though he seemed somewhat deflated. He stopped bouncing, too, simply walking beside Axel, paw in sweaty pre-teenage hand, ears drooped, springy tail dragging on the ground. The silence was even more unbearable than the singing had been. The little guy was _good. _Axel sighed, and resigned himself to the most humiliating adventure he'd yet had.

"What is it?"

"What's what?"

"The very most wonderful thing about Tiggers," Axel growled, inwardly hateful for being forced to say it out loud.

"Oh. Silly! The very most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one!" Tigger crowed proudly, accompanied by a loud bounce onto his tail. Axel blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected an answer like that- Tigger hardly seemed like a raging individualist. Though on the plus side, if this world only had one Tigger, well, thank God.

"Seriously? You're the only one?" The question was tinged with more than a small amount of desperate hope.

"Yep! Just me!" Wow. Only one Tigger. Relief washed over Axel like a sobering cold shower- he'd been so afraid of encountering an entire village of Tiggers that he hadn't even consciously recognized how terrified he was of encountering an entire village of Tiggers. But just one, one Tigger was manageable.

Axel could of course relate to being the only one of something, even though his empathy was stunted. He was and would forever be the only Axel. There had only been one of his Other, after all, and he could only lose his heart once, resulting exactly once in this particular incarnation of his shadow. The formation of Nobodies had all the miraculous randomness of a natural birth, a million separate factors pouring together and forming one precise not-person. Axel may have been nobody at all, but at least there was nobody else quite like him.

Axel was so deep in thought that he didn't even notice or care that he was obtaining wisdom from a stuffed tiger in a picture book. All well and good, because while he was busy thinking, Tigger took off through the woods in a completely random direction, abandoning him where he stood.

"Wha-? Hey, wait!" he shouted, and he moved to run after him. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten about his overly large feet, and he took one step before tripping over himself, hitting a tree, whirling around and landing straight on his rear end. His limbs, which for some reason suddenly seemed to be way more than just the usual four, were tangled up inside his coat, effectively keeping him in one place while he desperately tried to unravel himself. Axel did not notice when Tigger reappeared with another cuddly critter in tow.

"Wow, that was a spectacular landing on your butt! Could you teach me sometime?" The new voice was higher than Tigger's, soft and curious, somehow making a question that would be completely sarcastic from anyone else sound incredibly sweet and innocent. Axel was almost afraid to look. _Not another Tigger. Only one Tigger, _he reminded himself, and he bravely opened his eyes.

The newcomer was smaller than Tigger, and actually wore clothes. No pants, though, Axel noted. The animal wasn't anything that Axel recognized, though it looked a little mousey, with floppy brown ears and big feet and a thick tail. If it was anything like Tigger, the name should indicate what kind of animal it was, so Axel wasn't too concerned.

"This is Roo," Tigger explained happily. Axel narrowed his eyes. Roo? What kind of animal was a Roo? "Roo, this is Ay-xel. He's a friend of Sora's!"

"Sora! He's a great bouncer!" Roo cheered, hopping a little on his oversized back feet. Another bouncer, then. Swell. "Hi Ay-xel!" Axel didn't bother to correct their pronunciation of his name, since he wouldn't be hanging around these creatures for much longer anyway, and he figured it would be more trouble than it was worth.

"Uh, hi, uh, Roo." He was still upside down on the ground, and unwilling to do more than mumble awkwardly. Axel was content to allow the social burden to rest heavily on the locals.

"Where's everyone else?" Tigger asked Roo.

"They're all by the hill still looking for Eeyore's tail," Roo explained. Again with the yortle! _What _was a yortle? To be frank, it sounded dangerous. "Eeyore and Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit and Owl. I was coming to look for you!"

"I was at the bouncin' spot! That's where I met Ay-xel! He's lookin' for Sora so I told him we should come see you guys!" Axel began to notice that everything these creatures said had such buoyant enthusiasm that it sounded as if each sentence or phrase ended with an exclamation point. The energy was a refreshing change from the bland atmosphere of his home in the World That Never Was, not that he'd tell anyone that. He wished he could be this excited to see someone.

"Let's go! Everyone's waiting!" With some effort, Roo and Tigger managed to push and pull Axel upright and get him back onto his feet, despite his being more than twice their combined size. They really were rather sturdy, for stuffed animals. Now that he was up, the trek continued, with both of his companions reassuring him that the hill was very close, and hey, maybe after they found the yortle they could play some Pooh sticks, whatever that was.

True to their word, the trees soon began to thin out, and a road appeared, leading out of the forest and into a riverbed. Axel couldn't see anyone at all, despite the list of names that Roo had given.

"Where is everyone?"

"Up on the hill. Look!" Axel squinted. Sure enough, a small crowd- small in both stature and number- had gathered at the top of the hill, where there appeared to be a tree with a swing. His eyes widened. The swing! That swing had been in the picture he was looking at when he got sucked into this place! Could he be close to the exit?

"Let's go," he said excitedly, or rather, as excitedly as he could. He wanted to go home. For all that Nobodies couldn't feel, they could certainly still feel desire, and right now Axel desired a trip out of this crazy place and back to his castle. He'd had enough adventure for multiple lifetimes. He led Roo and Tigger across a rickety footbridge and straight up the hill, where he was brought face-to-face with the little bear from the pictures. Winnie the Pooh.

Pooh was sitting on the swing, just like he'd been in the picture. He was surrounded by an entire zoo's worth of fuzzy animals, and Axel easily put faces with names. Rabbit and Owl and Piglet were staring up at him curiously, and the very sad-looking donkey who must have been Eeyore. Piglet was completely terrified of him, and quaked silently behind one of Owl's wings.

"Why, hello there, Somebody-I-Don't-Know." Winnie the Pooh cocked his head to one side, scratching his exposed belly with a paw. His voice was different than what Axel had been expecting- lower, to begin with, and sort of raspy. In fact, the collection of little stuffed animals had very adult voices and mannerisms. Axel wondered briefly just how old they were.

"Are you a friend of Sora's?" Rabbit asked curiously. Apparently not all of them were dumb as posts. Maybe Axel had hope of escape after all.

"This is Ay-xel. I found him at the bouncin' spot! He's lookin' for Sora!" Tigger shouted, bouncing wildly around the group. Axel noticed that the little tiger's peers were not at all amused by his antics- Rabbit looked away, Owl coughed, Eeyore stared at the ground, and Pooh seemed to be off in his own world and not noticing at all. He felt somewhat vindicated that Tigger annoyed everyone else, too, though he couldn't help almost feeling bad for the little guy.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "Do you know where he is?"

"Sora went away a while ago," Owl explained. "We don't know where he went."

"And then Eeyore lost his tail again!" Roo wailed. Oh. They were looking for _Eeyore's tail_. That explained quite a bit. A quick look confirmed that the little stuffed donkey did not, in fact, have a tail, but a little tack where a tail was apparently supposed to go.

"It's not much of a tail, but I'm rather attached to it," Eeyore said dully.

"We came up here to see if we could see it better from a high place," Rabbit explained. "Pooh's going to swing from up here, but he's too heavy for us to push."

"I know! Ay-xel can push for us!" Axel wasn't sure who had made the suggestion, but all of a sudden his legs were surrounded by hopeful eyes, knee-high and desperate, silently begging him to please, please help them find Eeyore's tail. They weren't complete without it, they were telling him. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his soul where his heart was meant to be, a string was tugged. Axel tried to convince himself that he was only helping them so they would help him out later, _I scratch your back you get me the heck out of here_, but really, he would have helped them either way. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"Ok," he said. He shuffled over to the swing, and gave Pooh a little push. That wasn't high enough, so he waited for Pooh to swing back, and then pushed him again, and again, a little higher each time. The bear was heavier than he looked.

"Do you see anything, P-P-Pooh?" Piglet stuttered, the first time he'd spoken since Axel arrived on the hill. Axel gave the rickety swing one last mighty push.

Winnie the Pooh went flying.

Axel's eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from shrieking in horror in a rather unmanly fashion. All of the animals wailed in dismay as Pooh sailed majestically though the air and over the river in a graceful arc, and they rustled past Axel's knobbly knees on their way down the hill to rescue him. The only one present not horrified at Pooh's predicament was the recently sidelined Tigger, who cheered and bounced on his tail.

"Atta boy, Pooh Bear! Hoo-hoo!" he shouted. Axel stared down at him.

"You're not worried?"

"Nah," Tigger scoffed. Down below, the rest of the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood had found where Pooh landed, and were dragging him out of some brush. The bear did indeed look perfectly fine and uninjured- Tigger had been right. Pooh was also holding something, a tiny piece of gray fabric with a bright pink bow. Axel raised an eyebrow. That couldn't possibly be-

"Eeyore, it's your tail! Pooh found it!" Roo cheered. The animals rejoiced as if the entire world had been saved.

"Three cheers for Ay-xel and Pooh!" Owl chimed in. While the cheers were going on, Eeyore took the pathetic tail and pinned it back onto his rear.

"It's not much of a tail, but it's mine," he said affectionately. Axel watched the scene with all the wonder of an outsider peeking in, and his hand automatically flew up to the dead space where his heart once was.

_It's not much of an existence, but it's mine._

"No matter how many times Eeyore loses his tail, we always find it again," Tigger said, uncharacteristically quiet. "We always work together and find it again." Axel looked down at the group. Six animals, plus Tigger beside him, plus Axel made eight. Tigger was content to stay outside the group- if he wasn't annoying them, apparently, he couldn't be bothered. Axel smiled a little. The sentiment was very, very familiar.

Suddenly, Axel felt something tug at his navel. He automatically looked down, and was surprised to see that he could see grass through his hands. Was he fading away? No, he was going back. He was leaving the Hundred Acre Wood and going back where he'd come from- away from this place and back to the World That Never Was, to continue the search for his heart.

"Are you leavin'?" Tigger asked. "Don't forget us! And don't forget to bounce!" Axel grinned, as genuine a smile as he could produce.

"Of course I won't." And he meant every word. After all, there was no way in all of the universe and its shadowy underbelly that he could forget the Hundred Acre Wood.

He couldn't possibly forget the day he'd learned the most wonderful thing about Axel.

* * *

"OHHH THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT AXELS!

IS AXELS ARE WONDERFUL THINGS!

THEIR TOPS ARE MADE OUT OF RUBBER!

THEIR BOTTOMS ARE MADE OUT OF SPRINGS!

THEY'RE BOUNCY, WOUNCY, FLOUNCY, POUNCY, FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN!

BUT THE VERY MOST WONDERFUL THING ABOUT AXELS IS-"

CRACK.

The castle was silent.

No one in the meeting room had seen Xigbar leave, but they certainly noticed when he reappeared, grizzled and surly and spinning one of his massive guns on his right index finger.

"He's just in shock- got 'im in the kidney. He'll be fine tomorrow," Xigbar said bluntly. That day, the second-in-command made Organization XIII history by becoming the first and only winner of the Team Member of the Month award.

The book was deemed too dangerous to keep, retrieved from Axel's room by Vexen using special gloves and tongs, and disposed of quickly and cleanly, packed into a crate and dropped into a lake in Hollow Bastion where surely no one would ever find it. Now that the terrifying incident was over, the Nobodies dispersed rather embarrassedly back to their individual tasks, with no noticeable change in behavior, except that they may have avoided Axel slightly more than usual. For several days, no one dared to speak of the incident, until finally Xemnas came to terms with the fact that he'd have to get Axel's report on what was inside. The book had once belonged to the Keybearer, after all.

Xemnas steeled his resolve, and went to find Axel to find out just what was so horrifying that it had caused him to sing that awful song.

"Number 8," he drawled. Axel was drifting around the castle the way he usually did when he had too much free time, setting things on fire and generally being a nuisance. Even when being addressed by his Superior, all Axel could do was curiously cock his head to one side. No manners at all, really. "I need your report on what was… on your last mission."

"Oh, that," Axel said cheekily. "Here you go." He produced a blank manila folder before disappearing into a dark portal with a quick wave. Xemnas sighed and shook his head. What was he going to do with these people? He flipped open the folder and stared at what was inside.

His eye began to twitch.

_Read book. Keybearer has juvenile taste in literature. End report. - VIII

* * *

_"Wow! That was a spectacular landing-on-your-butt! Care to teach me sometime?" is a snarky punchline from my one of favoritest webcomics, Bob and George. My fanficcery has a tendency to get riddled with little references that only I understand. LOL.

That's all, folks. Now go write some Axel / Ariel fanfic, as it's the best pairing ever. I know what _I'll_ be doing this weekend.

Review, plz? :D


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